MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS (Childhood Essentials Library). Kate Douglas Wiggin

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      She looked from its windows onto the gardens “fore and aft,” and they seemed, like the rest of little Beulah village, full of sweet promise. In the back were all sorts of good things to eat growing in profusion, but modestly out of sight; and in front, where passers-by could see their beauty and sniff their fragrance, old-fashioned posies bloomed and rioted and tossed gay, perfumed heads in the sunshine.

      She awoke refreshed and strong and brave, not the same woman who took Nancy’s idea to bed with her; for this woman’s heart and hope had somehow flown from the brick house in Charlestown and had built itself a new nest in Beulah’s green trees, the elms and willows that overhung the shining river.

      An idea of her own ran out and met Nancy’s half way. Instead of going herself to spy out the land of Beulah, why not send Gilbert? It was a short, inexpensive railway journey, with no change of cars. Gilbert was nearly fourteen, and thus far seemed to have no notion of life as a difficult enterprise. No mother who respects her boy, or respects herself, can ask him flatly, “Do you intend to grow up with the idea of taking care of me; of having an eye to your sisters; or do you consider that, since I brought you into the world, I must provide both for myself and you until you are a man,—or forever and a day after, if you feel inclined to shirk your part in the affair?”

      Gilbert talked of his college course as confidently as he had before his father’s death. It was Nancy who as the eldest seemed the head of the family, but Gilbert, only a year or so her junior, ought to grow into the head, somehow or other. The way to begin would be to give him a few delightful responsibilities, such as would appeal to his pride and sense of importance, and gradually to mingle with them certain duties of headship neither so simple nor so agreeable. Beulah would be a delightful beginning. Nancy the Pathfinder would have packed a bag and gone to Beulah on an hour’s notice; found the real-estate dealer, in case there was such a metropolitan article in the village; looked up her father’s old friend the Colonel with the forgotten surname; discovered the owner of the charming house, rented it, and brought back the key in triumph! But Nancy was a girl rich in courage and enterprise, while Gilbert’s manliness and leadership and discretion and consideration for others needed a vigorous, decisive, continued push.

      If Nancy’s idea was good, Mother Carey’s idea matched it! To see Gilbert, valise in hand, eight dollars in pocket, leaving Charlestown on a Friday noon after school, was equal to watching Columbus depart for an unknown land. Thrilling is the only word that will properly describe it, and the group that followed his departure from the upper windows used it freely and generously. He had gone gayly downstairs and Nancy flung after him a small packet in an envelope, just as he reached the door.

      “There’s a photograph of your mother and sisters!” she called. “In case the owner refuses to rent the house to you, just show him the rest of the family! And don’t forget to say that the rent is exorbitant, whatever it is!”

      They watched him go jauntily down the street, Mother Carey with special pride in her eyes. He had on his second best suit, and it looked well on his straight slim figure. He had a gallant air, had Gilbert, and one could not truly say it was surface gallantry either; it simply did not, at present, go very deep. “No one could call him anything but a fine boy,” thought the mother, “and surely the outside is a key to what is within!—His firm chin, his erect head, his bright eye, his quick tread, his air of alert self-reliance,—surely here is enough, for any mother to build on!”

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